240040 SE Schwerpunktthema II / Critical Media Analysis (2017W)

In this course we will focus on major poststructuralist feminist-and-gender theories where language is considered as the central site of production of gender identities and gender relations. Language is discussed as being (ab)used for legitimizing (patriarchal) power-relations, but language is likewise seen as the site of (radical) transformation of gender, identity and practices of interrelation (see: Spender, Butler, Kristeva, Irigaray, Cixous, Lauretis, Bordo). We will trace how the meaning of semiology is considerably widened in this context and explore how poststructuralist theories of language as discourse help us to understand the relationship between language and identity.
If gender(ed) identities are constructed then we also must investigate how, from what, by whom and for what identities are made-up in culture and society. The other major objective of this course is to put theory into practice in context of an analysis of (post)modern texts and films which center on the dialog between (a) man and (a) woman and queer identities.
In this analysis, attention will be paid to the ways how particular identities are negotiated and renegotiated in dialogic and polylogic communication while being constructed by/in specific discursive formations and in relation to the larger social world. Central categories used in CS to analyze the structure of cultural identity are all implicated in this negotiation and provide tools to account for the metamorphosis of identities in settings where language functions either as an instrument of power or as a transformative field. Our analysis will focus on the meanings of verbal and non-verbal communication, relations dynamics and symbolisms, and the meanings and reasons of a breakdown and/or transformation of discourse.
Major attention will be give to the fact that the texts/films reflect some of the major zones where the theoretical discussions language and identity are situated: gender-construction in psychoanalytic scenarios and social role-play; performative historiography; ambiguous narration and narrative desire; postcolonial politics and ethnic-religious conflict; mass-media discourse & hyperreality; collective and individual (cultural) memory & trauma; social mechanisms of violence and domination.